mezze in bed!

I plan to ring in 2016 from my bed, fast asleep under the gigantic pile of Middle Eastern cookbooks that eggmom and eggpop gave me for Christmukkah. Maybe I’ll have a bagel dog for dindin! Or something else unhealthy, before we all start our diets. What about you? Do you have plans? Maybe it’s already the new year where you are? (Hi, Australia!)

Eggboy and I spent our last bit of 2015 all over the midwest: hurrying to Fargo for Star Wars on the big screen, driving to Chicago to eat bagels and vareniki with my family, and then stopping in the twin cities on the way home where we watched Garrison Keillor wish us a happy anniversary on air (!!!) and then had one of those long perfect brunches with alex, sonja, yossy, melissa, and sarah… the kind where time gets gobbled up almost as fast as sarah’s danishes. 

Now we’re back for a good molecule of time while I forcibly extract some words to go in my book. If macaroni keep laying at the rate that they are, maybe I’ll never have to leave! I’ll just stay burritoed up in a blanket with the clack clack clack of my typewriter. 

To begin the New Year on a fun note, here is one thing that I have always had extreme excitement for, and will always have extreme excitement for: A cute meal, cutely arranged with cute individual compartments and delivered on a cute tray.

And in bed. Hollllllller breakfast in bed. (My one complaint about Eggboy’s 12am-12pm sugar beet harvest shift this year was that I couldn’t make him breakfast in bed every morning like I did last year when he had a 12pm-12am shift. But that’s ok, now we’ve got all winter, when Eggboy’s existence is devoted to paperwork and fixing tractors on a laid back timeline that doesn’t demand odd hours, so I’m resolving to make more breakfast in bed!)

Or rather, mezze in bed, because this one’s got a middle eastern vibration since it’s the new year and… health! Whenever anyone asks me why I won’t shut up about Israeli and middle eastern food, I tell them it’s because it’s good and it makes eating healthy extremely easy. So here on this tray, I’ve compiled some of my favorite little middle eastern-inspired breakfast bites that are healthy and flavorful and perfect for a New Year’s morning breakfast in bed.

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Labneh // drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with za’atar

Whole wheat pita // make it!

Muhamarra // a toasted walnut and red pepper spread of MAGIC

Kale // sautéed with olive oil and garlic and sprinkled with ararat

Coffee // jazzed up with hawaij

An itsy bitsy bite of tahini blondie 

And a six-minute egg!

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-yeh!

This post was created in partnership with west elm! All of the goodies you see here are from West Elm, including the reason I’ve been getting better than normal sleep at night, bedding from West Elm’s new Coyuchi line! It is beautiful and comfy and makes me want to stay in bed all day. Enter to win a bed set here!

cornbread french toast with caramelized onions and cream cheese

yay, thanksgiving week! clappy hands, clappy hands. i was going to be sad about our fun-filled weekend* coming to an end, but then i realized that another weekend is going to start the day after tomorrow. yay!!! 

*pizza night on the town with eggsister and eggsisterman! a ride on a ferris wheel! the new hunger games! cookies! tacos and nacho with fellow chicken parent friends! ooh and adele on snl. yessss.

so i'm gonna go hurry off to get my thanksgiving grocery shopping ducks in a row so that i can have first pick of the brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes.

this is a super simple recipe that works best when it's made with day-old cornbread (ahem, as in leftover-from-thanksgiving cornbread). corn, caramelized onions, and cream cheese are all things that can hang so nicely on the borderline of sweet and savory, and you know me, i *love* a savory breakfast, so i like finishing this off with a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and paprika or harissa powder. but! if you want to take this in a sweet direction, there is no shame in nixing the onions here and topping this with powdered sugar or syrup! 

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cornbread french toast with caramelized onions and cream cheese

this makes enough for about 2 slices of cornbread, but it can easily be doubled/tripled/etc.

ingredients

unsalted butter, for the pan

1/2 small onion, thinly sliced

1 large egg

2 tb whole milk

two 1/2" slices day old cornbread

salt and pepper

2 dollops of cream cheese

hot sauce or any spicy seasonings, optional, to taste

clues

heat a small pat of butter over medium heat and cook the onions, stirring occasionally, until they're very soft and brown.

meanwhile, heat another pat of butter in a skillet over medium-medium high. beat the egg and milk in a bowl and soak both sides of the cornbread in it (i keep mine in for 15 seconds per side, but depending on how sturdy/fluffy your cornbread is, you might find it needs more or less time), brown both sides in the skillet, season both sides with salt and pepper, and then top with onions, a dollop of cream cheese, and a sprinkling of hot stuff, if using. enjoy!

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-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! check out their site for information on things like all of those symbols on egg packaging and how to decipher the numbers are printed next to a sell by date. (do you know what a julian date is?!) their site also has tons of fun egg recipes which i'll certainly need once macaroni start laying. follow #recipeeggchange for recipes and holiday hacks to use in the kitchen this season!

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pictured: pan // towel // bowl

yogurt covered eggs in a basket

happy halloween, friends!! are you excited or totally indifferent about the holiday? i've been pretty indifferent these past few years, but this year through a perfect storm combination of having an easy costume that i am so excited about*, not one but two invites to halloween parties, and the general urge to chill my bum off after a fun yet nutso month of traveling, i am more than ready to celebrate.

*i will be a cupcake wars contestant and eggboy will be the carpenter man that builds my cupcake display. in other words, i'll carry around a plate of cupcakes and make new friends and eggboy will wear a plaid flannel shirt like he does every other day anyway. in other other words, we will literally just walk out of the house.

i plan on spending the rest of my weekend celebrating the end of daylight savings time. is that something that people do? is it an excuse to make a cake and spend the day in pajamas? can it be? ok good.

and check this out, my eggs in a basket dressed up for halloween: as yogurt toast! i know, easiest costume ever. the toast equivalent to a bed sheet ghost, but we love it all the same! if you haven't jumped on the eggs + yogurt train yet, please get on this immediately. and if you haven't jumped on the yogurt toast train yet, please also get on this immediately. and then you will see how yogurt covered eggs in a basket was meant to be. the creaminess of the yolk and the yogurt balanced by a crispy buttery piece of toast makes for a very comforting, filling breakfast that will keep you energized for all of your trick-or-treating! i like sprinkling mine with my nice za'atar, olive oil, and the newest edition to my spice collection, berbere, which is common in ethiopian cuisine. but you can top yours with anything you'd like. keep it simple with salt, pepper, and hot sauce, or maybe go crazy and add caramelized onions. yum!

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yogurt covered eggs in a basket

makes 1

ingredients

a slice of bread

butter

an egg

a big plop of plain yogurt (full-fat, low-fat, or fat free)

salt and pepper, to taste

any additional toppings as desired, like za'atar, berbere, hot sauce, caramelized onions, olive oil, etc.

clues

Cut a 2 1/2 or 3-inch circle out of your bread and spread both sides with a thin layer of butter. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat and toast the bread and its circle on one side until brown. Flip them over, and then crack the egg into the hole. 

Cover the pan and cook until the egg whites are firm but the yolk is still runny. Remove the bread and its circle from the heat and spread with a thick layer of yogurt. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and any other toppings that you'd like and enjoy!

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-yeh!

thank you so much to the american egg board for sponsoring this post! head over to their site to check out eggspert tips like when and why to use room temperature eggs, how to substitute various sizes of eggs, and best storing practices for eggs. i'll be especially thankful for the size substitution chart when my chickies start cranking out eggs of all sizes but my baking recipes still all call for large eggs!

new york

bloop! greetings from los angeles, not new york. i know that's weird since all of these photos are from new york, but that's what i'm working with these days: a lot less internet, a vomiting to-do list, and operas every day. so all good things! (save for the to-do list.) all tasty things, all fun things, all things that include really awesome humans.

most of these shots are from a breakfast sandwich crawl that was strategically placed after the saveur awards so that a lot of the bloggers who were in town for that could come. it's true that we didn't stick to breakfast sandwiches and that we also made room for pie and poutine, but how do you not do that when a crawl takes you past 4 & 20 and mile end? 

meh!

eggboy has just arrived in los angeles, so i am going to take him to meet eggslut on this fine foggy morning. 

happy monday, everyone!

-yeh!

for a list of all of the places where we went on the breakfast sandwich crawl, check out donny's post!